S18 E15: [Autumn] He Needs to be Stopped
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You think you know me, you don't know me. Everybody has a whole time.

Hi, my name's Autumn. I started listening to the Something Was Wrong podcast during COVID. It was introduced to me by a friend. I always really resonated with some of these stories. Now my mom listens. She texts me asking me which seasons to listen to. I love nothing more than when people tell me that they listen with a friend or their mom or their partner. Where were you at in life leading up to meeting Alex?

I had a high school boyfriend for probably five years, and I met him when I was 16. We broke up right when I turned 21. I had dated a little bit since then. That's when I met my partner that I moved to L.A. with, and it ended up being a nightmare. I gave up everything I had worked so hard for in my late teens and early 20s, and I was in school.

I just up and left because this person asked me to move with them. He was in a band, so it was kind of glamorous and it was like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. That's when he had...

He was too afraid to tell me, so instead of actually being honest with me, he convinced me to move back to Boston and then was going out to LA all the time to quote unquote record with his band, but then ended up staying out there and he ended up going back to some girl he had previously dated.

He had planned that move back so he could break up with me and then go back to LA. So I was in a really vulnerable position. I was about 24 years old. So I had had a few serious relationships and like dated casually before.

But I was so impressionable. I felt so lonely at the time because of my previous breakup that I kind of lost sight of what was important in my life. I felt lost. I didn't know who I was. I was still finding myself. So I would put my all into these relationships with people who probably didn't deserve them because I had no self-identity at that time.

I've definitely dated the same person more than one time personality-wise. It's always the same type of person over and over and over again until I met my husband.

I was dating a little bit. I didn't really know a lot of people in the Boston scene, so I had no idea about who to avoid. I got brought to this bar in Alston, Mass., and that's where I met Alex. Honestly, at first, I thought he was pretty annoying. I was out with someone else I was starting to date.

And he was relentless at trying to get my attention. Things ended up fizzling out with this other person. And he was so persistent that I was like, all right, he's funny. He's kind of cute. I'll give him a chance. At this time, I was like, maybe he'll be a good one and be nice to me. Boy, was I wrong because he loves himself more than anyone else.

We ended up going to a house party somewhere outside of Boston. I didn't know anyone. I was meeting his friends. Then we went to a bar. He took me out on his motorcycle, which at that time I thought was so cool. He was really charming. He was really funny. We ended up back at his house. He portrayed himself to be this super nice guy who wanted it to work out, so he didn't want to hook up at the time.

which ended up happening anyway. He tried to portray himself as something he clearly wasn't. I think he had a rough family life. I remember I met his mother and his sister. His parents were divorced. His mom seemed really nice, but she was very young-seeming.

She was beautiful and probably got a lot of attention from men. And my sister was beautiful too. There was almost a very fake facade when he would go visit her and hug her and kiss her and just talk about how much he loved her. But I never heard anything about her when we weren't in front of her at that moment. I remember meeting his dad who had like a whole new family and younger children. He grew up in a suburb of Boston that's known for being kind of tough people.

I do know that is true because I have cousins that grew up there. He's a pretty skinny guy and he has this huge scar from one end of his rib cage to the other on his stomach. He told me it was allegedly from a stabbing. I don't really know the whole story. Way back when I was dating him, he showed me that scar. But after asking around...

Because of this podcast, I was curious about what actually happened. What I'm gathering is not a lot of people directly know from him exactly what happened. It is believed that he said it was him protecting a girl at a party, which is kind of ironic. He really did get stabbed protecting a woman and now he's acting the way he is. It's actually just unbelievable.

There were probably a lot of red flags at first, but I was so damaged from the breakup with my ex that I ignored all of them. You know, he didn't really tell me much about his dating history other than that there was a girl from the Bad Girls Club that he had dated and another girl who was a stripper at one of the fancy strip clubs in Boston. It was almost like bragging. It was really intimidating to me because he dates these beautiful women who have glamorous pasts.

It was almost like he had to show me to brag to me. Look what I can get. You should feel special that I'm with you.

When I had met him, I was actually living at home after that whole other breakup I went through. I was commuting about an hour to work to Boston because I had nowhere else to go. I was looking for an apartment with my cousin who lived in Northern California at the time. And we found this gorgeous house in a really cool neighborhood outside of the city. We ended up having like a ton of roommates, but I had met Alex before I moved in there. We didn't

We didn't really plan to move in together. I was just living with my cousin and my friends and it was a really cool situation. And then he had asked me if he could store a couple of things because we had this extra room where we did laundry because they had been evicted from the house that he was living when I first met him.

It ended up being a lot more than a couple of things. It was kind of forced upon me. It wasn't something that I had chosen to do. And I remember my roommates being really mad and frustrated because he wasn't giving us any money, you know, and he was never there. Basically, he would drop in to change, shower, take care of some illegal business, and then he would go out all night and not answer my calls or anything. They didn't think much of him. They pretty much hated him.

They saw the writing on the wall that I could not see for some reason. I had coworkers that I'm still friends with to this day who I met during my relationship with Alex. They tried to warn me. I had a group of girlfriends who did know everybody in the city and they tried to warn me and I just didn't listen. I'm one of those people that has to find out the hard way. My dad always says, I told you so.

I had to figure it out on my own. That was the same thing that happened with my relationship with Alex. My parents met him one time when I was actually moving into that house with everybody. My dad and cousin were doing all the work and moving everything. And Alex was just sitting there on this phone. He wasn't helping or offering to help at all.

He then wanted to go do something else, but my parents really wanted to take us out to dinner because it was a happy occasion. It was a new apartment. It was me getting my life back together after a really hard breakup. We were at dinner and

I don't think he even came with us. I think I was just with my parents and then he showed up wanting me to leave with him. I got up during this really nice dinner with my parents and left with this kid that they didn't really approve of. I really regret that. I think I was just once again trying to people please wanting this person to like me. Needless to say, no one really cared for this person.

I was working as a medical assistant at the time. So I had a really regimented schedule of getting up early, being to work by 8 a.m. He had the opposite kind of lifestyle. He didn't work because he was doing illegal things. I would stay over and go out and drink with him. And it started affecting my job where I was tired all day. I was late all the time. I was getting written up.

I remember when we were dating, I had gotten two or three moving violations. If you're under 21 in Massachusetts, you have to go to like aggressive driving class. One of them was for an expired inspection sticker. Two were from speeding tickets from when I was younger. And he actually had to go to aggressive driving class and we had to go together to the same class.

When we were dating, he almost was never there. He never slept there. He had two phones, which obviously is a little suspicious. I'm sure it had a lot to do with the drugs and with the cheating. He did have a couple jobs at like a call center for some clothing company local to Massachusetts to Boston area.

And he had used my friend's boyfriend's resume, who actually went to college and graduated and still works in the industry. He runs all the Instagrams for all these rap artists and he works for this bodega in Boston. It's one of those things where like you have to pull the door. It looks like a refrigerator. And then when you open it, it's this fancy shoe store. It's like a speakeasy, but for shoes.

Alex had used his resume to get this job at this clothing company, and he actually just worked for the call center. He fabricated all his credentials, but he had a lot more money than one would make at something like that. He had told me he was dealing Molly. I was 24. I experimented a little bit with him, but I had no idea to the extent of money.

his dealing drugs and how much he was doing it out of my own house, it became a thing where it was really dangerous because he was selling it out of my mailbox. He would lay it out back in that little room where he kept all his stuff where our laundry was and then put it in the mailbox and people would come by and pick it up all the time. And I had no idea. I was none the wiser.

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I looked through his burner phone one time. It was a flip phone, his iPhone. It never left his side, but he did leave this little flip burner phone. And all the texts were like, babe this, babe that. He said he called everyone babe and I shouldn't be worried about it when I confronted him. Then there was a time where he had left my computer open and didn't close out any of the browsers. He was using my computer to look at and join Donald's

dominatrix websites where he would be the dom and he wanted someone submissive for him. I would ask him about it and of course somehow he would turn it around on me like, "Why are you snooping through my things?" I do recall there were times where he would pressure me to do things a lot more rough than I would normally and want to film it.

I just wanted to do what would make him like me still. He'd be making me choke, my eyes would be watering so bad that all my makeup would be going down my face. In that sense of being intimate, it was more about power and control for him, more than connection with that person. It was more aggressive. I had never really been in a relationship where someone wanted to humiliate me during sex.

He wanted to be in charge. He would want to have a threesome or a foursome with a lot of people, and I was really uncomfortable with that. It was just something I had never explored or done before. Not kink-shaming anyone, but at the time it wasn't for me, and I felt a lot of pressure from him for that kind of thing. Come to find out he was finding those wants and needs elsewhere.

Then there was a time where he was liking this girl's pictures a lot on Instagram. She was only 16, I believe, at the time. I would always get really sketched out by it because I knew who she was and I knew that she was around them a lot. And it was inappropriate for him to be that interested in her selfies.

Over time, I had convinced myself that he was going to do something eventually, but I just didn't. After we had broken up, I did find out he had slept with her and I believe she was underage at the time. I was so angry with her, but I should have been angry with him because he preyed on her and she was way too young to understand what was going on. I should have saw that at the time. It was all him. He just went after someone vulnerable.

Every time I had an issue with something, it was turned around on me. I just ended up feeling like a crazy person throughout our relationship. Looking back, there was nothing wrong with me. There was no reason for me to feel that way other than what he was saying to me. There were incidents where he got absolutely furious with me about things that were not really in my control.

Whenever I would go out with a group of girlfriends and any of the guys that they had hung out with, he accused me of sleeping with that person or having them come over after.

There was this tattoo artist from Boston. He's no longer there, but he still has a very strong reputation there, who I did end up dating eventually, but not at this time. He had sent me a message trying to slide into my DMs. And when I had told Alex that we were coming back from a night out, he flipped out. I didn't think he would be so upset about it. And he actually left me on the side of the road, took my car down the street, and...

put the keys on the hood of the car. I was trying to talk him down and I was crying. Someone actually saw this happening and I was hysterical. And Alex wouldn't let me in his house and my car was in the middle of the road with the keys on the hood. And this man was trying to, you know, to ask me if I was okay. And Alex ended up coming over to him and he was spinning at him through the window. It was just horrifying.

This person was just trying to be a good person and make sure I was okay. Alex went home, locked me out. I drove a couple streets over to where my brother had lived and shamefully had to wake him up and be like, "I got in an argument with this guy I'm dating and I ended up sleeping on his couch." He would get really possessive of me but be doing things that were a lot worse behind my back.

One time I had a rental car and I heard this buzzing in the glove compartment. So I opened it and there is someone's cell phone. So I'm just thinking someone who had the car before me left the phone. So I answered and it was like a student from BU and his friend. And they were like, oh my God, thank you so much for answering. Can you come meet us and give it back to us? And I was like, yeah, of course, that's totally fine.

I did what any normal caring person would do and met them and brought the phone back and they were so happy and so thankful. A couple days later, Alex had looked in the glove compartment for the phone because he had apparently found it or stolen it.

And was absolutely livid that I had returned it to its rightful owner because he wanted to sell it for money. I could not believe how angry he was with me about me doing the right thing. So that's foreshadowing of the type of person he is.

Halloween 2012. I was preparing to go to this huge party at my friend's house. Typical 20-something, I was dressed as a slutty maid and my friends were all dressed as slutty witches. You know, that's what you do when you're in your 20s. You dress up in the most revealing costume you can. Alex had said he was going to his own party with his own friends. I haven't

no idea who he was with. I never heard from him the whole night. I was partying with my friends, having a good time, not worrying about anything. Went to bed. I wake up early the next morning and look at my phone and I have like 40 missed calls from him. I was like, what is happening? Because he would never call me, especially when he was a night out. He had bought this old Land Rover from his dad a few weeks earlier.

Apparently, while he was going out, he had like a few girls in his car and some friends. The car lit on fire. It imploded into flames on Sturrow Drive in Boston, which if you don't know what that is, it's a very busy road. The fire trucks had to come and put the fire out. And obviously he couldn't drive his car home because it was crisped to the frame. He wanted me to come get him. And that's why he had called me.

close to 40 times. The worst thing I could have done to him was not answer my phone. But I was sleeping and he never called me about anything ever, especially during the night.

We roughly made it through the holidays. I remember being really sick. I think I had pneumonia and mono or something. It was horrible. I could not get out of bed. And I didn't have health insurance. My doctor was calling in prescriptions, knowing I didn't have insurance at the time, just trying to help me.

I remember having a Christmas tree up and wanting to do holiday things or wanting to be taken care of. I couldn't lift my head up. He was out all the time doing whatever he did. My cousin actually did take really good care of me. And then by the time Valentine's Day came up, we were done. Absolutely over. The way that it ended with him was, it wasn't like an ending, but to me it was the ending of my chapter with him.

I thought he was dramatic back then, but for what's to come, I had no idea how dramatic he could be. I think he's just very self-serving. So the person I was dating when I had met him was a woman. Things didn't go anywhere with that. They had actually met up in Boston and they slept together. He sent me a picture of them together, which I think was another form of...

Hey, fuck you. Look at me. Look what I'm doing. I am hooking up with someone that you've been with and that you cared for that I took you from. They actually sent me like a selfie together in bed. He had moved out to my now husband's apartment with a bunch of his friends living there. He had moved into the kitchen, like a pantry. He had moved into the kitchen, like a pantry.

He had moved in there and there was like a mattress on the floor. I would have to beg him to get his things out because my roommates and cousin were getting really frustrated that not only is this person not paid us any kind of compensation for keeping his things here, now you're not even dating him and he still has a room full of clothes and boxes. It was a long process. It was dragged out and he finally got all his stuff out. I think I saw him a couple times after that where he was sick and I brought him Gatorade and

And he was laying in that pantry on a mattress really sick. And it was actually kind of empowering to see him. After we had broken up, I probably didn't see him for a few years after that. But we stayed on civil terms for some reason.

It's a lot to take in. As much as I talk about him and give a nervous laugh or roll my eyes at something he's done, it was very tumultuous. It was very toxic and it had a huge effect on the type of men I went on to date and the type of relationships I put up with.

I had gone to visit my friend in San Diego and really had nothing going on at the time. I had a part-time job. I was living at home again. And when I went to San Diego, I fell in love. I love that place. I didn't want to get back on the plane and go back home to Boston. It was a really hard thing to do to get back on that plane. So when I got back, I found out one of the girls who lived with my friend was moving out. I

I said to her, I'm taking that room, so please don't give it up. I'll be there in April. And I moved to San Diego against my parents' wishes. But it was wonderful. It was life-changing. Alex, he had moved along with a whole group of friends to L.A. and were living in the L.A. area.

I remember they had all come down to San Diego one time, including Alex. They were at a sushi place near my apartment and Alex wanted to come see me. He was acting like, oh, you're such my good friend. I want to see you, blah, blah, blah. And when it became apparent that I wasn't going to sleep with him, he just left. And that was one of the last times I saw him. And he had gone back to LA. That's when I had started corresponding with my now husband because he was living in

LA and I was living in San Diego and we both were single finally. So we would kind of chat back and forth just through social media. He was a crush from afar at the time. I knew who he was and I thought he was the most handsome person I've ever seen.

We saw each other at a party in locked eyes and it was just like this unspoken attraction we had for each other. But there were instances where Parker saw and witnessed Alex cheating on me or finding a used condom in his car. He would just be so disgusted. You have this person who seems to be a good girl and this is how you're treating them. Alex always had a history of that, so it wasn't surprising to them, but I think it was probably a little frustrating.

I remember one of the times my husband and I tried to get together. I was actually in LA with a couple friends. We were planning to meet and Alex got wind of it and was not happy. He put a stop to it.

completely. I felt totally stood up by Parker and I was absolutely devastated because I thought after all this talking, we were finally going to meet up. But he didn't really divulge the fact that we weren't meeting up was because of Alex. He didn't want to cause any drama because he's a very non-confrontational person. He's very neutral with everything. But I think Alex eventually...

figured out it was going to happen anyway. I was just living in San Diego doing my thing and eventually hooked up with my husband. We were actually back home visiting in Boston for Christmas and we had hung out on New Year's Day. That's how our whole relationship started. And then when we both flew back out to California, he came down to San Diego from LA and just never left.

He got a job down there and moved in with one of his friends, and we've been together ever since. We got engaged, and then we moved home from San Diego back to Massachusetts. This is where a lot of issues came up with Alex and Parker's relationship over financial things to do with a car that he had sold Alex. Like I said, Parker is very non-confrontational, and

Alex had owed him a lot of money because he had never transferred this car's registration into his name and left it in Parker's name and then racked up thousands of dollars in parking tickets over the whatever period of time he had the car. And my husband had no idea. And then he found out he had a warrant for his arrest because of all these parking tickets. It was like $2,500 worth of parking tickets.

He was so nervous to talk to Alex about it. I was just like, we don't have the money to pay this. It's his fault. We should just ask him for the money. You need to get this cleared off your record so you can get a job and can start our lives here. I ended up messaging him myself because I'm just going to say what I need to say to you. And if you don't like it, that's too bad. I said, this is

said, this is the deal. Parker owes all this money because of parking tickets you racked up and never changed the registration into your name. And the car ended up getting repossessed. Now he can't get a job here because of something that isn't his fault. So he then owed us the money. It was really that easy. I was really surprised. Then we ceased communication with him after that. We ended up getting married in 2018.

I didn't want to invite him to the wedding for obvious reasons. We haven't seen him or talked much to him since the whole car thing.

The life I have now is my closure because I'm happy and I have a beautiful home and beautiful little family full of animals. And I have my husband who is the best person I've ever met. And I kind of owe that to Alex, which is weird to say, but I think that's my way of feeling closure and feeling like I won.

We did go to a wedding last fall, right after our four-year wedding anniversary. And he was there, but he was very different. He was not the funny, charming, charismatic Alex that he put a front on to be. He was very strange. He was quiet, just very observant of everyone, like sneaking around in the background, watching everybody.

It was just not the same person that I remember. Since I last saw Alex at that wedding, I've heard a lot of different things about the allegations against him through mutual friends. They're feeling almost like they don't even know who he is and they're mourning a friend that they had who was turned into a complete monster.

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Parker still followed Alex on Instagram, and my brother-in-law also follows him. He had an ex-girlfriend he was doing OnlyFans with, and I think it was on Instagram. He was posting stories with pictures of her and all her social media names, saying that she was using content with him in it without his permission and making money off of it. I don't know what his endgame there was, but I think it was a lot of fun.

People started messaging her and threatening her to give him his money. Then he reposted something saying, it's not cool to threaten her like that. It was just like, well, what were you trying to do? Why did you put all her information out there? I just stopped following him on everything. I didn't want to see anything anymore after that. The biggest thing was that I married one of his friends, so I felt obligated to keep the peace.

That's complex. And they're no longer friends, right? Yeah, they have no contact. I'm pretty sure everybody from home that I met through him or through my husband...

I'm pretty sure almost everyone I've heard of or spoken to has nothing to do with him anymore. I was actually surprised he was invited to that wedding I went to. It was like seeing a ghost. I'm so far removed from that group of people now. I think, aside from seeing him at that wedding, I don't think any of us are going to be seeing him anytime soon. I talked to one of my friends that grew up with him. My friend was telling me that his mother and his sister don't have any contact with him anymore.

Last March, I had gotten a text message with this link to this Twitter account, and it was like, Kevin POV accountability. I guess Alex had started his own porn business? I did know he was a sex worker. I knew he had an OnlyFans account.

I'm not sure if he got kicked off of OnlyFans before or after this, but according to the Twitter, he was doing both. And then because of the Twitter, he got kicked off of OnlyFans. This Twitter account, someone had started it because they were hearing a lot of rumors about him abusing sex workers.

He would either drug them or be violent with them. He was not going through the proper procedures of doing sex work. He wasn't doing any testing with these people before filming. He wasn't even filming half the time. He was just having sex with these people who thought they were going to get paid for this performance they were doing. And he wasn't even filming that whole time.

A lot of them sex workers, some of them ex-girlfriends, calling him out on how abusive he was being toward them. He was physically abusive to them during the filming. He would choke them or strike them. Some of them claimed he gave them the date rape drug. The extent of the abuse, it seemed absolutely horrible for these people to go through this. A

A lot of them are actors in the sex industry who are just coming to LA to start out. I'm sure they don't even know how it really works out there in that industry and how it's really a profession. And there are certain avenues you have to go through for that. And I think he's taking advantage of these women who don't know that yet. That was actually one of the worst things for me was the vulnerability of these people, like the vulnerability I had at the time when I met him.

And him just continuing to take advantage of women all over for years. I can't believe he's escalated to where he is today. The physical aspect of it, the date rape aspect of it,

He had guns all over the apartment, illegal guns, which I've actually seen pictures of. He's posted. Someone had sent it to me. He's like holding machine guns. But yeah, they looked pretty unnecessary for somebody who lives in an apartment in L.A. or anywhere. It sounds like it's escalating, which is a really scary thing.

I agree with you. The accounts that are shared from the Twitter account, their experiences are so horrifying, especially for sex workers, to your point, who are more vulnerable to be taken less seriously by authorities because of the profession. Yeah, it kind of seems like this Twitter account has slowed them down. I'm sure the word has gotten around a lot. People probably don't want to work with them. At least we can hope

I knew he wasn't a good person, but I didn't realize he was this awful. That's where I decided to contact you and tell my story and hopefully get him held accountable for what he's doing to these other women in the sex work industry. For all of us who haven't

have come in contact with him and have dated him and have been emotionally and physically and sexually abused by this person. He needs to be held accountable. That's why I felt the need to come forward to you, Tiffany, because I could have submitted on that Twitter, but I felt more comfortable with you and trusted you because of listening to your podcast all this time. You would really get the message out there. And I'm hoping that more people come forward because of it.

Coming forward with my story, honestly, I was really nervous and terrified, but you have helped me so much through that process of feeling confident. I just had to remind myself that this isn't about him. It's about these women who he's victimized and getting justice for them, hopefully by just sharing my little lip of time where I experienced his abuse as a partner and

It can help other women come forward and share their experience. I think it's really hard to make yourself vulnerable about situations like this. It's really emotional too, but he needs to be stopped. And I'm hoping that we can all work together and make that happen. He doesn't need to be creating more victims in this world.

I think that's probably the most amazing thing that's come out of this is now I have the strength to come forward and I'm upset that it took a whole Twitter thread for me to come forward and talk about this, but I really hope that more people will come forward if they're comfortable.

and bring to light their stories and their experiences. After coming out about my story with him, the amount of people that reached out to me and told me how strong I was for doing this and how much they had my back was really surprising because I almost expected to get the opposite reaction. Even friends we both had that they've known him longer have been totally supportive of me and have reached out multiple times.

I know that they don't even speak with him anymore. I just wanted to read something that my friend sent me in regards to this whole experience coming forward with speaking about what I went through and her just seeing the Twitter. It really resonated. It says,

I'm so proud of you for being here today because I know some of your yesterdays were really hard. I don't know what you're going through, but you are going to get through it. You are going to get through whatever you're going through. I hope you fight for yourself when no one else does. You are worthy of your wildest dreams. You are someone worth fighting for. Keep going.

I think it's a quote. It says Jacqueline Whitney on it. It was just like a little thing she shared with me. I've never actually had anyone say anything like that to me about my relationship with him or anyone else that was toxic. It was like, wow, I'm being seen and being heard for once, even though it's however many years later. I love that so much. What a good friend.

My heart goes out to you and all the other victims who have been harmed by this person. And I hope that by you sharing your story, it will help lead to justice. And at minimum, when people Google this person's name, if they are thinking about filming scenes with this person or having a relationship with this person, that they will be able to make a more informed decision. Thank you for letting me help you do that.

I think every time we speak out, we make it easier for others to speak out. It's not for everyone. I'm just so thankful for you to be willing and have the strength and be in the place where you're able to do it.

Thanks for giving us a voice. You're doing amazing work. That's why I reached out to you. I felt more comfortable reaching out to you. I feel like even though I didn't know you, I knew you from just listening to you. And it felt really comforting to share that with you. And I know it's going to be shared in a safe space. You're going to help all these people get their voices heard if that's what they choose to do.

Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe, friends.

Something Was Wrong is a Broken Cycle Media production created and hosted by me, Tiffany Reese. If you'd like to support the show further, you can share episodes with your loved ones, leave a positive review, or follow Something Was Wrong on Instagram at somethingwaswrongpodcast. Our theme song was composed by Glad Rags. Check out their album, Wonder Under. Thank you so much.

If you like Something Was Wrong, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. She struck him with her motor vehicle. She had been under the influence and then she left him there.

In January 2022, local woman Karen Reid was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O'Keefe. It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location. What happens next depends on who you ask.

Was it a crime of passion? If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling. This was clearly an intentional act. And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia. Or a corrupt police cover-up. If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a cover-up to prevent one of their own from going down. Everyone had an opinion.

And after the 10-week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision. To end in a mistrial, it's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is. Law and Crime presents the most in-depth analysis to date of the sensational case in Karen. You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.